Model City Monday 6/27/22

ZEDE update, Afropolitan, and we're going to Disney World!

16 hr ago

Goodbye, ZEDE Law

The story so far: in the mid 2010s, Honduras passed a first-in-the-world law saying that private actors could apply to run charter cities / special economic zones (ZEDEs) on Honduran territory. Three groups took them up on the offer and designed various interesting projects.

In January, Honduras kicked out the right-wing government that passed the ZEDE law and replaced it with a socialist party led by Xiomara Castro, which had made opposition to the ZEDEs part of its platform. In April, the new government repealed the ZEDE law, with uncertain consequences.

Everyone agrees that creating new ZEDEs is now illegal. There’s less clarity on what happens to the existing projects. The government that instituted the ZEDE law wanted to protect ZEDEs from future governments changing their minds, and added various protections saying that once the ZEDEs existed it should be very legally difficult to close them down. In theory, it would take acts of two separate legislative terms (this one counts as one), and even then the ZEDEs would have (according to international treaties on protecting investments) up to a fifty year grace period to wind down their activity.

Prospera, the first and largest ZEDE, has (as usual) dominated press coverage. They state that the government hasn’t asked them to shut down, that the government continues to accept payments Prospera owes them for its continued operation, and that when Prospera has told the government that it plans to keep operating, nobody in the government has objected.

— This (~4:00) is my main source for Prospera’s position and what they’ve done. —

They’ve also retained the services of White & Case LLP, described as one of the best international arbitration law firms in the world. They add that sophisticated investors have given them over $30 million since Castro’s government was sworn in, representing a vote of confidence from the markets that they’ll be able to get through this.

What about the other two projects? The head of Ciudad Morazan, Massimo Mazzone, writes (copied from his Twitter and translated from Spanish by Google Translate):

Morazan.city received its permit in April 2020, we started building some months later . . . from the beginning, it was conceived and built as a complete community with a very large residential part.

The ZEDE law makes it possible to extend to individuals and families the advantages that the ZOLI (the traditional maquilas) extend only to companies, because the ZOLI are pure industrial parks, the employees work there but live outside.

I am interested in building a complete community, with families, jobs, schools, hospitals, parks and everything else that is the basis of a safe and dignified life. The prices are reasonable, 3,000L per month for houses of 60 meters, all included apart from electricity and water.

I am not interested in building an industrial park. If that had been the objective, the ZOLI already exist and are better than the ZEDEs, the companies in the ZOLI enjoy many advantages without having to spend to take care of public services for the people.

I don't know if the government is serious when it says that it wants to find a way to maintain investments with a different regime from the ZEDE. I think there is a very large space for a compromise. I did not participate in the creation of the law, I found it as it was.

Many of the articles never interested me. I agree to delete or change them. But the most important characteristic, that families live, is not negotiable, simply because it was the only reason for the project. If this is not possible, I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in continuing.

Also:

Balance of the ZEDEs so far: No expropriation, no corrupt refugee, no "HN sale to the highest bidder." Billions of investments, thousands of jobs, Honduran families living in peace and prospering. Many resentful social networks [???].

Yes, the Law is repealed, and it is false that ratification is needed. However, the Government is respecting the Zones, eg. sending Customs people every day because it is a free zone. Maybe they do it because they want to respect acquired rights and avoid lawsuits But I don't think so, the Repeal Act says they don't want to do it, and the rhetoric is clear.

I think they want to achieve a satisfactory agreement for all. I hope so, as I said there is a lot of room for a compromise, we found the law as it was, it can be modified. Obviously there are many details, but the two fundamental things for us are that 1) the possibility that new Zones can host individuals and families is respected, and 2) the same international guarantees that we have now are recognized.

I can’t find any statements from Orquidea, but my understanding is that their business model is less ambitious, they don’t have much incentive to resist this legal change, and they will probably devolve gracefully into a standard industrial park.

Goodbye, Reedy Creek

Reedy Creek Improvement District is a forty-square mile piece of Central Florida including the towns of Bay Lake, Lake Buena Vista, and - last but certainly not least - Disney World.

Florida gave the territory as a charter city to the Disney Corporation back in 1967, when they were first planning Disney World. Partly this was so Disney could handle the services for their theme park, but partly it was because Walt Disney had grand plans to build the "Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow" (EPCOT), and Florida wanted to let him. According to Wikipedia:

EPCOT was to be a utopian autocratic company town completely controlled by Walt Disney himself and featuring commercial, residential, industrial and recreational centers, connected by a mass multimodal transportation system. Based on ideas stemming from modernism and futurism, it was designed to replace the inefficient infrastructure created by urban sprawl that was growing in the United States in the 1960s. Needing the flexibility and independence to establish and maintain his own specialized, personalized government, Walt lobbied the Florida Government to create what became the Reedy Creek Improvement District.

But Walt died the next year, his successors had less interest, and the plan was cancelled. Parts of it survived as the Disney World monorail (originally planned as EPCOT’s public transit) and as the EPCOT Center (a Disney World attraction memorializing the plan).

The giant silver golf ball at the center of the EPCOT theme park. Compare to the giant gold golf ball at the center of Auroville. I think someone should create a conspiracy theory about this.

In the end, all Disney had was a forty-square mile corporate fiefdom, on which they built several cities. Overall they seem pretty nice, although more because of the magic of walkable urbanism than the magic of Disney.

Celebration, Florida.

But earlier this year, Florida passed a law banning schools from teaching LGBT topics to young children, which the media dubbed "the Don’t Say Gay Law". Disney did some corporate activism against the law, the Florida government got mad and brainstormed ways to punish Disney, and the best they could come up with was to re-establish state control of Reedy Creek, which DeSantis officially did last month. Disney has sued the state, but it looks like it’s just over some debts and the lawsuit is unlikely to prevent the dissolution.

You get socialists in power, they dissolve charter cities. You get conservatives in power, they also dissolve charter cities. All I want is one government that doesn’t dissolve charter cities! Is that too much to ask?

Hello, Afropolitan

Last year venture capitalist and thought leader Balaji Srinivasan introduced the idea of a "network state". With the advent of social networks and cryptocurrency, as well as increasing polarization leading people to group themselves more by ideological cohesion than geographic proximity, maybe people could group themselves into nonterritorial state-like communities. And although these would seem pretty thin compared to real states that have monopolies over use of force in real geographic areas, maybe some of them could use charter-city like systems to eventually buy land and graduate into full statehood.

(is this just the Hive System from Terra Ignota? I think so, but probably with fewer major governments being controlled by weird brothels.)

Anyway, Afropolitan has taken him up on this. They share a name with a landmark essay by Achille Mbembe (founding a country based on an especially good essay also sounds like something that would happen in Terra Ignota, as does history being changed by people named things like "Achille Mbembe"), arguing that Africa needs to re-invent or re-define itself or something. The founders of Afropolitan-the-company have taken this idea of a trans-national African diaspora and turned it into an "African DAO [and] digital nation...building a network state to unleash the maximum potential of Africans around the world". They write:

The nation-state experiment has failed for Black people worldwide. It has yielded nothing but poverty, genocide, police brutality, ethnic strife, inflation, weak government, and the failure of our ecosystems.

All people who call themselves free have a fundamental right to create the society they want by choice collectively. As the internet enables us to shrink space and form bonds across the planet, no person should live in a society by accident or force.

…and go on to list a four-step plan to create the society of the future. Step One is to sell NFTs "representing the mythology of our new nation" . Step Four is "a[n] extensive system of charter cities akin to Singapore or Hong Kong". In the unlikely chance that you care what Steps Two and Three are, you can find them here.

Why should you take them seriously? I am not at all claiming that you should. I am only claiming that "sell digital tokens representing mythology, but eventually this turns into a country" is the most Terra Ignota thing ever. Also, at least the founders have good aesthetics:

But also, some people are taking them seriously. VCs including Balaji Srinivasan has invested $2 million. The group claims to have 50,000 followers on Clubhouse. They’ve been featured on TechCrunch and (very briefly) Marginal Revolution.

I would, however, briefly challenge their claim to be "the first ever Internet country". People have been building Internet countries as long as there has been an Internet. I’m not sure which was actually first, but I know the Kingdom of Talossa has been online since 1995. A 2000 New York Times article on the Internet country phenomenon profiled Talossa, but was already able to give six other examples. And although these were perhaps easy to miss, Danny Wallace started the Kingdom of Lovely, a "partly Internet-based project that claims a small amount of territory", on a widely-viewed BBC documentary in 2007.

I myself got involved in an online country project back when I was a teenager in the early 2000s. Although no venture capitalists appeared to give me giant bags of money, it got a few dozen "citizens" and some fun government institutions before finally petering out around 2015.

I guess what I’m saying is - I’m available as an Internet country building consultant with fifteen years experience. And no, I don’t accept payment in NFTs.

Oh, You’re Still Here?

Meanwhile, in Honduras, it isn’t all legal doom and gloom. Prospera has also been making real progress, as measured in pretty photos.

Two Roatan resorts, Las Verandas and Pristine Bay, have joined Prospera. The ZEDE law saying that landowners can voluntarily annex their land into a willing ZEDE:

Las Verandas
Pristine Bay

Prospera is also building a high-tech wood processing factory that will eventually produce parts for its other construction efforts:

Current construction progress
Planned final appearance

And its first multi-story apartment buildings:

Current construction progress
Planned final appearance

It will also be hosting gene therapy company Mini Circle, which runs clinical trials for innovative medical procedures. Granting that many of its studies (treatments for HIV, muscular dystrophy, obesity, etc) seem great and important, it perhaps seems suspicious that they would want to do this in a charter city?

The company writes that "the cost of running a trial in Prospera is less than 1/1000th the cost of the United States", which seems good in ways but does not entirely allay my concern. I was originally worried that they would be experimenting on Hondurans or something, but looking at the site it looks like they’re recruiting worldwide and would probably fly Americans (or whoever else) to Honduras for the therapy.

Their site features a quote from friend-of-the-blog Alex K Chen, who says:

Minicircle's bioscientists have one of the most enlightened risk taking calculi I have observed anywhere. In an environment where extreme hesitance to take any risk holds back scientific progress, they have the openness to imagine, try and measure just about any legal intervention putting them in a very strong position to both produce a significant measurable decrease in the human rate of aging, and to inspire more people to do what they never thought was possible.

I think the only way this could get more mad science points is if it used the phrase "small-minded fools". Mind you, I think mad science points are good, I just hope everyone else sees it that way and my optimism turns out justified.

Also, apparently the clinical trials have NFTs, because of course they do. At least they’re not commemorative NFTs - they seem to play a load-bearing role where they help participants be incentivized to complete all the necessary tests.

Also, low-cost eco-residences!

Shorts

1: I previously mentioned the scam/fiasco/insane-idea of Hammer City, a planned black nationalist city in the Rocky Mountains. I knew it had failed, but I didn’t know exactly how. Now Colorado Sun has investigated. The proximal reason it failed was because the black nationalists started moving their paramilitary onto the land before they had officially bought it, the owner called the cops, and the cops removed them. The Hammer City team has not given back any of the $112,000 which they raised from extremely credulous donors (without using NFTs, even!)

2: The Charter Cities Institute continues doing the long-term ground-level work necessary to create long-term responsible charter cities which will be much too boring and responsible for me to write silly profiles of. Some of their most recent work has been with the Africa Next 50 Cities Coalition, which "convenes and mobilizes key stakeholders who are dedicated to harnessing Africa’s rapid urbanization for human prosperity".

3: Also, CCI founder Mark Lutter has left the organization to start a charter city of his own, no public details yet. CCI will be looking for a new executive director.

4: Speaking of Disney, they’ve been building on their model city expertise and magical storybook branding by creating planned communities around the US - Story Living By Disney, starting with Rancho Mirage California. Realistically it just looks like a very nice planned community, but this planned community comes with the option to have people make fun of you forever for living in a Disney community as an adult.

Predictions for this month:

  • Prospera is still substantially a functioning ZEDE in 2025: 70%

  • Reedy Creek is still substantially independent and controlled by the Disney Corporation in 2025: 15%

  • Afropolitan has at least 10,000 paying members/citizens and makes more than $1 million per year in 2025: 15%

  • Afropolitan accomplishes Stage 4 of its plan by 2050: <1%

  • Mini Circle runs a clinical trial to the satisfaction of its corporate clients by 2030: 50%

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By Scott Alexander · Thousands of paid subscribers

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Okay, I'll take up the conspiracy theory challenge. Here we go.

If you draw a straight line between Auroville and Epcot, it goes *right through* the Sahara desert. If you were an alien species trying to set up a worldwide communications grid, wouldn't you start with two giant multi-faceted metallic balls that are far enough apart for proof-of-concept, but don't have a lot of humans in the way? ALSO, wouldn't you just use long-distance mind control to convince already tripped-out artist-y/mystic-y people to build the prototype grid so you wouldn't have to actually drop these golf ball things on the planet yourself (embarrassing!) Yes, you would.

Of course, the aliens have a bronze giant golf ball for receiving communications from Earth

Wouldn't a line through the Pacific avoid even more people than a line through the Sahara?

Obviously you don't have a clear understanding of hypometaspacial communications.

I know my opinion is controversial here, but: excellent news re: the ZEDE laws. Here's hoping that the expropriated land is returned and full Honduran sovereignty is restored as quickly as possible.

I think I’m halfway with you. A city is a people and a culture more so than a location (with some fuzzy recursive causality there) and these seem to be attempts to build structures not cultures.

On the other hand, I think we’ve reached a compute limit in our current structures so it’s good people are trying. I’d like to see someone who is as practical as a farmer take a crack. Conservative utopians seem to just converge on "there should be a king" and liberals on "what if everyone just had sex with everyone else?" Which both bore me as ideas.

15 hr ago·edited 15 hr ago

>I think I’m halfway with you. A city is a people and a culture more so than a location (with some fuzzy recursive causality there) and these seem to be attempts to build structures not cultures.

This hasn't described western country cities in a long time. Cities in the west today are people with little uniting them besides economic interests. They aren't *a* people and they aren't *a* culture. They're multiple peoples with multiple cultures that by no means have anything in common beyond wanting to live in an urban environment. A charter city would be composed of a much more congruently cultured population than New York or London would.

"Conservative utopians seem to just converge on "there should be a king" and liberals on "what if everyone just had sex with everyone else?" Which both bore me as ideas."

The former at least has some hope of producing something of value

First part is a bit complicated but I kind of agree. There’s definitely a lot to the idea we have non geographical nations inside of our phones. I’m looking forward to the Balaji book.

Second part, this is a theory vs practice problem to my mind. Certainly kingdoms have produced enormous value in the past but I just can’t see the steps you take from what we have where a guy says "I should be a king" and gets a bunch of people to say "yes you are wonderful" and then they all get together in a healthy productive nation.

To be clear I *want* to see a better world work out. But I think what we need is something closer to a new religion for people to glom onto.

Have you heard of the Boer Community of Orania, South Africa? It’s pretty much a Charter City, but I understand why Scott hasn’t mentioned it yet.

Only the former has hope of producing something of value? C'mon man, don't harsh my yum! I value my sex life!

Keep slinging those slogans. I'm sure the horror of expropriation will be palpable amid all the peace and prosperity. See, I can do it too!

Seriously, and to comply with the comment policy, my understanding is that the land was uninhabited and of minimal value to anyone, which is exactly why it was chosen. That's not to say there will be no conflicts, nor anything done wrong by either Prospera or the Honduran government in pushing the project, nor anyone left behind, but every policy has tradeoffs. Given the uneven success of traditional states the world over, trying something new seems like a good idea.

Specifically as to whether anything was expropriated, I truly don't know and honestly don't much care. The reality is that the land is part of Honduras, and the Honduran government disposed of it in a manner they saw fit. Such is the law in virtually every nation. As far as I know, excepting those which still retain allodial title in like noble families, the state is the actual owner of all land. Landowners merely own it at the sufferance of government. I forget the exact property law term for it, but such is the case even here in the United States. As long as the government pays you, it can force you to sell. I don't know what procedures Honduran law demands for this kind of compulsory purchase, but if they were followed I'd probably be satisfied. If they weren't, those wronged should sue the Honduran government. Probably, you could shame Prospera into shelling out.

The Honduran government that approved ZEDEs was notoriously corrupt, and the founding of Prospera was greeted with widespread disapproval from locals.

None of whom live on the site. Lots of people right here at home object strenuously when new housing or a new train station elevator is to be built in their neighborhood. I wonder if there’s a name for such people... Nope. Can’t think of it. But they’re a menace, holding back development, making everyone (even themselves) poorer, and fostering endless conflict.

I’m sure the Honduran government that authorized is it was corrupt, just like I’m sure the new government that has walked back ZEDEs is corrupt. That’s the reality in Honduras. When they do the right thing, I think we should regard it as an improvement, not as sinister.

That sounds worryingly close to the way a lot of colonialism got started. Local elites selling out, private companies setting up towns and local people getting no say in it. Of course it wasn't long before the private companies, and eventually their governments, just decided to take over everything.

It wasn’t long? It was more than 250 years of dense history (often featuring native princes using the colonizers as pawns in their own internecine struggles) before, for instance, the EIC went bankrupt and the kingdom annexed the company’s Indian territories. The superficial similarities of events appear to be blinding to almost everyone. Just like how in foreign policy it’s always 1938, in trade policy it’s always 1600.

And the European India companies were always public-private, mostly owned by the state from the inception. If prospera is associated with any government, it’s Honduras’ own. More than that, it intends to make worthless land valuable by the industry of its people and the dynamism of its government, not by its control of natural resources or proximity to markets. The colonizers sought the best and most developed land for their first acquisitions, or if they could not get such, as close as they could. Plus promising spots along the route between Europe and Asia to provide infrastructure (watering and provisioning, or later coaling) for trade and expansion.

So just to be clear, you would rather Houndorans be poorer in the name of some symbolic victory over evil capitalists?

So just to be clear, you think that prosperity is worth more than democracy? I certainly don't.

You're using 'Democracy' here in such a vague and expansive sense so as to be meaningless

Though it's easy for you to discount the value of prosperity if you're not an impoverished honduran.

I think that makes a good slogan, but that the real-world choice is: is it worth letting some people experiment with a small patch of unoccupied land nobody was using anyway, if it might lead to thousands of people being lifted out of poverty and given otherwise unattainable levels of safety and freedom. It really surprises me how much people who aren't even Honduran are willing to sacrifice for the principle of Honduran sovereignty being undiminished over a patch of land that didn't even have any people on it to appreciate it.

Yes. Democracy is only worth anything to the extent it leads to greater prosperity or individual freedom than the alternative.

Moreover, in this case, people can vote with their feet. People are only subject to a ZEDE if they choose to move to one, or to accede to one, or possibly if their landlord accedes to one, in which case they can move out.

Yes, prosperity is definitely worth a lot.

If you look at whence and whither people migrate, you can see that this sentiment is widely shared around the world.

Didn't a democratic government set up the ZEDE legal framework? What's undemocratic about it? You realize in a democracy 51% of people could vote themselves all your stuff any time they want, right?

Last I heard wasn't Prospera denying there had been any expropriation? I'd be interested to see your source there.

From whom was the land expropriated?

To whom is sovereignty sacred, and why?

> Here's hoping that the expropriated land is returned

This is already vacuously true: there was zero expropriated land, so all of it has been returned.

What makes the government of Honduras a better than the charter cities?

Also what do you mean by restoring sovereignity? Honduras always had full sovereignity.

Just like the US has full sovereignity over Disneyland.

Honduras' GDP is about $2,400 per capita. If someone can double or triple that number, even just in a particular city, I don't know that I'd care who was sovereign and who wasn't.

What to do I need to do to start a corporate autocracy in, say, upstate NY?

Doesn't Albany already count?

No, people from Albany insist that upstate is still north of them

If you'll settle for a combination religious movement/interpretative dance troupe, the Shen Yun folks already have a compound on ~400 acres in upstate NY with apparently a few hundred permanent residents.

In a sense it's a very well built up and securely defended model city, if the model is a very generous interpretation of pre-communism Chinese culture.

Hmmm – that might be a good (practical) model.

I guess I would just, e.g. apply to the county/state to incorporate as a municipality at some point.

I just checked my notes and I'd already thought of this (apparently) about 4.5 years ago.

Time to look for some cheap land!

That's good to know. The best religious movements always incorporate interpretive dance.

A combination religious movement/interpretative dance troupe in upstate New York? It must be a new Era of Manifestations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Era_of_Manifestations

I vaguely hope that Disney tries to make Storyliving be something other than "a planned community." Like, they have been doing some innovative things with immersive experiences in the Star Wars portion of the park and the hotel.

Living in a community that Disney tried to weave some kind of entertainment experience through the basic experience of just living there would probably not be for me, and I expect it would end up being not really for anyone, but it would be interesting, and it's not like anyone is getting hurt.

Like, just as a pretty low-key example, they could develop a fake "history" of the town with an interesting narrative, and have a few semi-hidden spaces and maybe some plaques or something, maybe a once-every-few-months appearance by some cast members to seed clues, and the people who live there might enjoy unravelling "what happened at the founding of our town" and finding some cool designed public spaces they could hang out in.

It wouldn't be anything revolutionary, of course, but maybe it'd be a little shared experience that could kindle a connection with your neighbors.

Maybe this has been discussed before, but legally could someone form a charter county or other sub-national entity, within the United States? Like, pick out a plot of rural land and get the feds to exempt it from state laws- allowing a sort of special economic zone here in the US (yes, federal laws are burdensome, but in practice federal regulators can't be everywhere, and at least you're not covered by the state bureaucracy too).

If it's not workable within the lower 48, maybe picking an island territory that the US controls could be a viable option- Samoa, say, or the Virgin Islands (or even Puerto Rico!) A free trade economic zone with lower taxes and less burdensome regulations, that openly attracts foreign capital

In a previous charter city post, Scott linked to this https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/nebraska-lawmakers-reject-pitch-to-create-sovereign-city/, which I think comes pretty close to what you're describing.

I'm just speculating here, but I think in the US you'd probably have the best chances of doing something by convincing some native Americans to do it on their land?

There's a lot of extra federal red tape for outsiders to set up a business on a reservation, even if the tribe is all for it.

Hmm, probably true.

Well, I never said it was a good chance. Just that it was your best chance..

Any better ideas?

I think there's something in the Constitution about not splitting states up, which I think this would do, since AFAIK all land in the States is part of some state already.

The reservations might not be, IINAL.

Not sure about the territories either.

Notwithstanding Federal land, that is. There's amazingly little Nevada in Nevada.

If anything, you might have a better chance doing something through the feds on Federal land (Interior controls vast swathes of the West).

> Step four is "a[n] extensive system of charter cities akin to Singapore or Hong Kong".

Singapore and Hong Kong are both cities full of people of well above average intellect, founded by people/governments who were capable of creating and running successful nation states. Without these things, there's absolutely no reason to imagine this will work.

Africa has a much smaller pool of high intellect people to draw upon than China/East Asia, so even if you manage to cobble together enough of them for a potentially functional city state like this, you will have deprived the rest of Africa of people it desperately needs. Just as in regular immigration advocacy, the people who ostensibly care most about helping Africa are the ones most vigorously advocating for brain drain that it cannot afford.

More to the point, both Hong Kong and Singapore were established as trading posts by the British Empire. I doubt there was any real intention at the time to build them into cities or any real idealism beyond making money.

I don't think Singapore started out with exceptionally smart people.

You brain drain narrative sounds suspicious. Do you want to lock up people in underperforming countries instead of allowing to move to prosperity?

(There's some indication that availability of migration opportunities boosts education efforts btw.)

Didn’t it take a few centuries for Hong Kong and Singapore to become significant?

I guess it depends on when you start the clock?

Modern Singapore is often seen to have started in 1819. British Hong Kong started in 1841.

When do you want to stop the clock?

I'd say at the latest you can say that they are significant today. That's about 200 years for Singapore. Not sure whether that qualifies as 'a few centuries"?

Less conservatively, Hong Kong was already important at least 50 years ago, and also started later than Singapore.

I had misremembered them as being founded a century or so earlier! But still, it’s about a century (probably more for Singapore) before they became significant.

A century to go from "Fishing village of a couple hundred" to "Globally significant centre of commerce and trade." is a very impressive takeoff in my opinion.

If the African versions can achieve the same success on the same timescale, I'd consider that an outstanding accomplishment.

Africa has a large & growing population, so a small percentage could still form a viable charter city. And then that charter city could benefit its neighbors via trade.

"Muchos resentidos sociales en las redes." means "A lot of social resentment online." He's basically saying, "It's all going well but people are complaining online anyway."

https://youtu.be/tKYEXjMlKKQ is about the history of Epcot as a whole but includes very detailed research about the Reedy Creek Improvement district. Also, I hate Twitter search so I'm not going to find the link, but the video's creator had a lot of entertainingly harsh words about all of the journalists that became overnight experts on the subject that he spend months researching.

Half the people in the Afropolitan photo are also wearing clothing that wouldn't look out of place in 2454.

I officially love Afropolitan on Terra Ignota vibes alone. I don't think they'll succeed, but I really hope they do, in part because I want people to see more genuinely innovative and good stuff come out of Africa.

"Achille Mbembe" cannot possibly be a coincidence.

I'm almost tempted to get involved just to see where things go, but I'm not exactly African, though I lived there for a bit.

Is there some meaning to that name I'm not grasping? Or is it just a cool name?

It is phonetically very similar to a character from the same book

Black Hammer is doing alright for themselves. They’re fighting American imperialism, one pro Putin demonstration at a time.

https://blackhammer.org/2022/04/25/vladimir-putin-shouts-out-black-hammer/

I took a gander at the Minicircle genetic testing NFT. I am not entirely clear where you are supposed to buy one, or for how much, but at current rates it is redeemable for 1ETH=$1176 and requires the owner (test subject) to go out of pocket for 8 DEXA body image skins which seems to be, conservatively, $1600?

A legal intervention is one that can be carried out with little risk of legal intervention.

Comparing Disney to what’s happening in Honduras is nuts. Because 1) Disney didn’t actually build the EPCOT city it’s just a very large corporate campus with hotels. 2) They decided to pick a very aggressive fight with the host territory on a policy that had nothing to do with their district’s status.

Yeah, it's crazy that a media company, of all things, would try to exercise their right to free speech! Disney has famously never had any interest in tapping into cultural trends, so why would they care about gay rights?

Did Disney do anything aggressive? I thought they just advocated about one minor law, rather than the usual fights about significant things like land or money.

I mean, we do call it a "Culture War" it's hard to take a position on it without the side you aren't backing considering it an "aggressive act".

I am still kind of confused how one can make long-term plans for building some large project in a country where a Marxist government can come in and confiscate everything at any moment. I mean yes, theoretically US government could do it to anybody too, but the chances US votes in a (fully) Marxist government for now are very low. Not all countries have such traditions. Whatever the old laws said, the Marxists can always proclaim these laws were passed by corrupt bourgeoisie dogs, and The People can not be bound by such tricks. So I'd imagine the question is less of what some or other law says and more of whether a particular project has some powerful friends which could put pressure on the Marxists to not just confiscate everything and put the founders against the wall (if they don't have common sense to flee in time). If there are no such powerful friends, I don't see how any letter of the law would protect anybody.

Sometimes you've got to roll the dice. If I were braver, I'd be one of them. And if I were Prospera, I'd look into buying a military at some point, but good insurance policies plus White & Case should suffice until there's really a lot to lose.

Buying a military that can keep even a relatively small but determined national government at bay - if you are not another national government - may not be an easy thing to do, though I imagine not impossible, and having historical precedent. But also brings the risk of actual shooting confrontation - which is not what the investors would want to hear, especially if it gets to Western media which would not treat "corporate military shoots poor government troops" very kindly, especially given how many of them are openly or secretly sympathize with anything Marxist.

You'd have to tread lightly, both for the reasons you cite and for fear of doing something yourself which might revoke the ZEDE agreement. If you could be portrayed as the aggressor, it probably wouldn't go well. The PMC would probably be much more valuable as a deterrent than an actual combat force.

Once the Honduran armed forces actually show up to re-occupy the land (like various national armies did with the "diplomatic" territorial adjustments in Europe circa 1937-1940), you'd probably want to admit defeat and rely on the by-now very impressive roster of insurance policies. I'm talking like over a trillion dollars in total insurance against this kind of thing, if Prospera has something like 50,000 residents.

Honestly you’d get more mileage with a Private Intelligence Agency and a Private Media Company. Also consider just bribing the politicians. The fact that Prospera is providing consistent payments to the government is a positive effect.

I always thought there was something of a Catch-22 about charter cities: their best scope for improvement is where the quality of existing governance is low, but low quality governments in the area are thereby less likely to respect the charter. Seasteads are a different story in that they don't start out by depending on any government.

In the end the only thing that matters for *true* sovereignty is how many guns you have. ZEDE isn't much different from Ukraine in that regard. Those with big heavy guns will subjugate those without them. This was the case 10 thousand years ago and it will continue to be the case for as long as humanity exists. All who doubt this basic principle will eventually lose their money and/or their life.

This seems false. Texas now has the ability to set abortion policy that Joe Biden's government in Washington doesn't want. They have this right because America basically follows the rules sort of to some degree, in a way not directly related to how many guns Texans vs. feds have. Honduras also has rules, and although they follow them less, that amount is nonzero. I don't know if that will be enough to protect Prospera long-term, but it doesn't seem like a 0% chance.

But Joe Biden *doesn’t* have enough guns to take on Texas? If he tried, there would be a new Civil War and no one wants to try and fight that again. Not to mention all the US army soldiers who would suddenly revolt if you asked them to go shoot on the streets of Texas.

I agree this is true, but irrelevant. If it helps, sub in "Vermont" for "Texas", even though I don't think there are any existing conflicts between DC and Vermont.

I understand that myst_05 is effectively arguing that enough of the people with big guns (as of now) think Texan government is legitimately able to set abortion policy Joe Biden doesn't like. In other words, as long as that holds, Texans have a sort-of partial "ownership" of those big heavy guns to implement their will. But that is condition on a SCOTUS ruling and the big guns heeding it.

Compare and contrast Czar Nicholas II, who could trust Russian army would execute his commands in 1914, but no longer could in 1917. Nicky lost the legitimacy and the big heavy guns.

The real question is: can a ZEDE trust in the Honduran big guns viewing their claims legitimate or not if there is a conflict with Honduran government? If they can not, the ZEDE exists at the pleasure of Honduran government and is not sovereign.

What can the WTO or whoever else enforces international trade treaties do to Honduras if it reneges on its treaty obligations? I think there would probably be some significant cost to Honduras if that happened. Incentives matter.

Don’t Vermont and the federal government have some big disagreements about marijuana legality and immigration law? (DC has those same disagreements with the feds.)

Scott's right, I don't think that's relevant.

If Hillary Clinton had won the election in 2016, Texas would have exactly as many guns as they do now (if not more). But Texas wouldn't have the ability to set abortion policy.

You claim that the number of guns is the "only thing that matters". But I think it's absurd to suggest that the number of guns that Texas has is the "only" reason Biden isn't sending the army to shoot on the streets of Texas. It absolutely does not logically follow from "Biden disagrees with Texas's abortion policy" that "Biden wishes to coerce a change of policy through military force, and the only thing stopping him is gun ownership rates in Texas." Texas's sovereignty, like the sovereignty of other states with fewer guns, is protected by a lot of other things before the right to bear arms would become relevant.

This part "gotten in touch with the governing body of the Central American-US free trade agreement" is mistaken: what happened (and what the linked article said) is that they engaged in consultations with the Honduran government itself, as a preliminary step to initiate arbitral proceedings under the CAFTA-DR agreement (a free trade agreement of which the US and Honduras are party).

This is very typical of these kind of investment treaties, and usually lasts up to six months, and then their counsel (White & Case is indeed one of the top firms in this field) should be able to start the arbitral proceedings. And then give it a good five years before an award comes out - by which time the government might have changed already.

(For context, I am a specialised journalist/academic in the field, happy to answer further questions about all this. We are monitoring this case closely, it's an unusual one.).

Thanks, I've corrected that sentence.

I have to admit I'm confused by this. Is the idea that if Honduras breaks any of its previously-written rules about Prospera, they've violated a trade agreement? What happens if you violate a trade agreement? Do Honduras' trade agreement partners care enough to pressure them over this?

Possibly. Trade policy is used to push back against all kinds of political developments that the stronger trade partner doesn't like, with variable results. The USA is vastly Honduras' largest trade partner, 35% export and 40% export. Their next largest partners are Germany (8% export) and Guatemala (10% import).

If Honduras is seen to be flip-flopping on domestic reforms (such as the ZEDE), and ones that are designed to improve the ease of doing business which the USA is expecting will improve the competitiveness and growth of the Honduran economy, that could bring consequences generally, both in terms of how the US does trade policy, and in terms of how private companies operate in the nation.

If it's a violation of an international agreement, it could possibly lead to forfeiture of some of the benefits of the agreement, such as most favored nation status or tariff exemptions or preferential trade zones, or just the loss of the economic opportunities created by the agreement. It seems like these treaties are often made simply for the purpose of facilitating foreign direct investment, and essentially the recipient state will grant certain special rights to enumerated private investors to improve their ability to operate in the recipient state. I have no idea, in this particular case, whether the repeal of the ZEDE law amounts to such a breach of any of the no doubt many treaties that govern trade between the USA and Honduras.

Of course, the US has to tread carefully in how it pressures the Honduran government, if it does at all, for fear of looking neocolonialist. Also, and for that same reason, a Democratic administration will likely be less willing to exert such pressure. Probably, in the end, Prospera is just too small a fish for the government to make a stink over. As Damien says, they can pursue arbitration if need be.

The 'trade' here is deceiving; in fact, CAFTA-DR is part of a generation of trade treaties that includes a chapter on investment protection - this chapter is being invoked here.

Investment protection treaties/chapters have two main attractive features: strong (because vague) protections against mistreatment, including uncompensated expropriation; and access to international arbitral proceedings, to obtain a judgment (called an award) in the investor's favour (which can then executed nearly everywhere against the state's foreign assets).

States win most of these arbitrations, though, and investors don't necessarily recover most of what they asked for - but that's still attractive, and it's likely that a third party financer is being involved in this case (e.g., financing the arbitration legal costs, typically a few millions USD, against a cut of the final award).

So, new ZEDEs can't be formed, but are existing ones allowed to expand further? That's pretty important.

Also, it's sure cooler to say "low-cost eco-residences" than "wooden huts".

Good question, I don't know.

I wouldn't call it a hut. More of a shed.

Reactions to predictions:

- long Reedy Creek to 45%

- short afropolitan to 5%

- shor minicircle to 25%

I took a look at Minicircle's therapies. Most of them seem plausible (long-term delivery of antibodies/growth factors) but the "GENE THERAPY FOR LOW TESTOSTERONE" could go horribly wrong if they don't pay close attention to hormonal feedback loops. Also depending on how they do the hTERT therapy it may have a risk of cancer.

Unfortunately they don't provide any details on the actual design of their gene therapies.

Suggestion: use https://www.deepl.com/translator instead of Google Translate. Much better results for a smaller set of languages.

Does anyone else suddenly have a blue filter over Scott's posts? Not substack in general, just Scott's posts.

Scott turned on background colors on the blog so it doesn't look identical to every other substack out there.

I like it, easier on my eyes.

OOH, I understand that making working and living spaces pretty is mostly a matter of will and vision. OTOH, I have a hard time taking seriously a "factory" whose main feature is a terrace with what looks like a bar.

Have the people making those designs ever been in a factory of any kind? Those places are loud, dirty and smelly. The best way to make a good resting/eating area is to put it far away from all of that, not fancy sloped roofs.

The government in Florida is not conservative, it is fascist. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#Position_in_the_political_spectrum

Oh, they exalt violence/war as a positive and denounce government by elections?

the broader political position: authoritarian responses and social conservatism

> EPCOT was to be a utopian autocratic company town completely controlled by Walt Disney himself ... But Walt died the next year

I am now intensely curious about the timeline where Walt Disney survived.

Yeah, I REALLY wish he had survived a few more years. He had so many mad social scientist plans. I'm sure most or all of them would have gone terribly (designing better social systems is actually very hard), but we'd have a ton more data on how some interventions work.

I mean, 'lots of interesting data' is the realistic scenario, which is already pretty good.

But I was thinking more along the lines of 'EPCOT works well, grows into an international empire of charter city/theme parks, Disney becomes a quasi-country and major geopolitical player, maybe adds a defense/aerospace division'... That sort of thing.

In case anyone forgot Costa Rica manages to survive without having a military.

"They’ve also retained the services of White & Case LLP, described as one of the best international arbitration law firms in the world."

Oh hey, hello there -- a family member worked for that company for many years (they are now half-retired, continuing to do consulting work for the firm on a part-time basis); they were heavily involved in that company's arbitration of the financing of the Tours–Bordeaux high speed train line that opened in 2017.

"founding a country based on an especially good essay also sounds like something that would happen in Terra Ignota." <=> happened IRL Der Judenstaat

also you can read the american revolution as the result of several decades of polemics by Franklin, Paine et al

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